Conventional credit, debit, loyalty and other cards are widely known and used for their convenience. These cards are frequently embodied in a plastic form and are provided in various shapes and sizes. Moreover, to further the appeal to consumers, these cards are being equipped with chips as smartcards to provide faster, more secure, transactions and to provide additional features. In the arrangements that allow for contact-less transactions, the smartcard credit cards are provided with a contact-less interface that interacts with a reader device to process card transactions. Specifically, the card is brought into close proximity with the reader transaction device, data is exchanged via the contact-less interface in the card and the reader device, and the transaction is processed.
However, while these features make credit cards more attractive for consumers, a consumer must carry each plastic credit card individually in order to take advantage of the features these cards offer. This is not only an inconvenience for consumers, but also a burden to credit card issuers due to the cost of the traditional card personalization process, which requires the issuers to provision and mail the cards to many consumers, and repeat the process when replacing expired cards.